I'm not a huge fan of fruit leathers, but this turned out super good! And, really, you can't go wrong with blackberries, mint and rum.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Food Waste Reduction report #3

The third week of the Food Waste Reduction Challenge went well for me. Of course, it ended up with me choking down a few things I'd rather not have, but mostly because I'm still a tad nauseated from the strep/penicillin fiasco.

We did end up composting a few things, but the only stuff I was more or less "responsible" for was about a half cup of white onion. I was getting major heartburn from it and couldn't forsee eating it in the near future.

This was a really good week- no food waste at all. Yay me! The only problem I have is my mom- she has decided to send all her leftovers to work with me. Not so easy not to have food waste with extra bowls of spaghetti to eat as well. But I ain’t complaining. Chile was a big help by mentioning that I could grind down those unpopped kernels of popcorn and use them in corn bread!Sunday- No food wasteMonday- No food wasteTuesday- No food wasteWednesday- No food waste- took some leftover spaghetti and garlic bread for lunch at workThursday- No food waste- took leftover Lentil Burgers for lunch at workFriday- No food WasteSaturday- No food waste

I was really mad at myself this week. I did okay not buying too much/wasting food except for the fact I made a huge roast in the crock pot---and left it on the counter overnight instead of putting it in the fridge. I was so tired after dinner I forgot to put it away!

I was ANGRY that I let half a good roast go to waste. Would have been leftovers for the whole week's lunches!

The good news is, I took the cans out to the curb and the only food waste we've tossed was a cup or two of rice.

Bad news, we've been trying to get rid of the pre-packaged foods and the gazillion bottles of all-purpose cleaners on the shelves (we really do carry multiples of cleaning products). In our effort to eat the food and use up the excess cleaning stuff, our load of recyclables doubled this week. We actually almost filled the can (usually have half a can at best).

We still aren't where I'd like to be. We eat left overs, leftovers rarely ever get thrown out. But the problem we have is stuff left on kids plates. They say they want something, then they eat a couple bites and walk away from the rest. I've tried putting less on their plates, but then they say they're hungry and want seconds. So I get them seconds and they eat one bite then say they're full. Argh. So I've started putting less on my own plate, then when they're full I eat the rest from their plate. Not the most sophisticated way to eat, but it saves money and frees up a wee bitty space in the landfills.

We did great! Our first ever week with no waste! You can see my post about how waste was avoided before Lent - make pancakes! - and get a great recipe for whole wheat pancakes here: http://myfriendoprah.blogspot.com/2009/02/food-waste-for-week_20.html

not too bad. getting easier.mind you i think the soy milk in the fridge is starting to smell a bit funky... probably cos I'm the only one that drinks it and I do have a tendency to forget its there. Maybe i should just not buy it eh, instead of wasting most of the carton everyweek! lol

I'm happy to report that now that all the expired items from years ago are gone from my pantry, we didn't waste anything. Even the shells from the mussels we ate on Friday are being saved, since we've decided to eat them once a week from now on -- getting fish into our diet for less $$ and saving the shells to use in our garden beds.

This was a particularly bad week for us. I was not keeping close enough track of my husband's food and 4 pears went bad. I tried to choke down one but it tasted way too weird for me. This one was partially my fault because I although the pears were bought for him... I will eat them if I see they are getting past their prime.

We also threw out some apple juice. I don't like to drink apple juice although I did have some to try to use it up.

And we have the same problem as Niecey. We try to give the kids less and they want more. We give them more and they eat almost nothing. ARGH!!

None of the food purchased for me went bad and that is what I primarily track. I have no control over anyone else in the family although it frustrates me to no end that they think it is ok to throw away food.

We didn't do that well this week. I cleaned the fridge out and ended up throwing out a bunch of stuff.I have a bit more about it here: http://eternal-balance.blogspot.com/2009/02/food-waste-update.html

Not so good. I tried to make popcorn for a party and burnt about a cup of it. I also found something in my cupboard that had turned flourescent purple (!) Finally, we made sangrias a couple of weeks ago to get rid of some on the way out fruit, and we kept adding wine to it. It was delicious, but we finally had to throw out the dregs (about 1.5 cups of fruit).

ARRGH! I take it back! I just was putting away today's batch of fresh-baked cookies and found, tucked behind our dry canisters: 4 squares of GOOD chocolate gone B-A-A-D. It actually had mold spots all over it. I threw it away, since I;m pretty sure milk chocolate is not really great for compost. We hide our chocolate in a few different places, so our candy-loving toddler won't find it. Ive never had chocolate get actual green mold on it. So sad *sniff*!

We didn't have any food waste this week until I got a sore throat on Saturday and grabbed the container of Miso from the back of the fridge to make Miso soup. The lid came off of the miso and since it was hidden, it sat for I don't know how long and dried out - totally unusable. :(

To redeem myself, I did reuse some orange peels we had http://condo-blues.blogspot.com/2009/02/10-easy-ways-to-use-orange-peels.html.

Bad bad bad week here. Big batch of chicken soup got sick! smelled bad and had to be thrown out, one leftover serving of stir fry went out, jam got moldy and went out, and half a cup of korean pancake batter went out (and that was an attempt to salvage REGULAR pancake batter for a new use - I should have just made extra pancakes and toasted them!), and some sauces left from Valentine's Day had to be tossed, along with some yellow stuff that MIGHT have been eggwash at some time.

Funny how homemade quiche or BBQ never needs to get thrown out, isn't it?

By the way, you mentioned in your original "food waste reduction challenge" post that egg shells and banana peels don't count as waste, unless we could come up with a use for them. I actually found a way to get some use out of the banana peels. My kitten LOVES bananas and she will actually LICK all the flavour and white bits out of the inside of the peels, and eat the stringy bits. Isn't that weird/cute?

Just a 1/4 cup of refried beans and a half a chinese take out dinner this week. We had a small handful of grapes get tossed to the worms, but that I totally count in the unavoidable category, because even if you eat the grapes on the day you bring them home, there are bad ones. :-D

The chinese take out I blame on baby cravings. heeheehee.. I would have finished it the next day, but that cold/flu thing that's running around made me pretty nauseous. Oh well.

We've been going rounds with the crud, too and not been doing so well. Mostly half-eaten kid plates and leftovers that have gone bad. We have been doing better about what we are buying and planning meals around what is already in the fridge with maybe a couple of fresh additions.

Bad week for us. Just got back from 12days working in CA to find that hubby didn't eat the leftovers that he had created while I was gone. Due to the presence of mold-couldn't salvage any of it.Made me very,very,very sad to have to bring it out to the compost pile.

We've been on holiday for the last 3 weeks (lucky us, I know!). This has resulted in almost no wasted food for my partner and I. Unfamiliar food and portion sizes beyond their appetites meant rather a lot of waste for our kids though.Anyway, we are home now (sigh), so it's back to the challenge.